A professor of mine whom I love agreed to write me an LOR, but god dammit he's taking forever with it! I've sent him gentle reminders 3 times and every time he replies apologizing profusely about the delay and assuring me he'll get on it ASAP, but still no letter. Last week, he said he'd have it ready by Thursday the 17th, but he totally hasn't sent it in yet.

I've been letting it slide but I'm planning to submit my applications in a week or so and I'm starting to worry, he's the only academic reference I have so I can't even let it go...and I can't go to his office and use the puppy dog eyes because I'm abroad.

I recently had the same situation. Go see your professor personally and remind him of the urgency of the letter and when you aim to submit your application. But, as a back-up, I'd go find another professor and quickly tell him your situation (provided you have somewhat of a relationship with this professor...).

^^Lol at reading comprehension. If you can't go see your professor, make a phone call. Candidly ask when he thinks he will realistically submit it. I had a similar issue, and I ended up emailing a back-up professor. My preferred recommender submitted 2 days later, so I didn't need the backup, but it was good to have it prepared.

It's been my experience that when a recommender ignores you and drags his feet for that long, you're probably not going to get a great recommendation, if you get one at all.

An old supervisor for whom I'd worked for years and had great relations with agreed to write me a LS recommendation and delayed for three months, giving me one excuse after another. When he finally deigned to write it, he sent me a copy. He wrote all of five sentences, only one of which actually talked about me as a candidate. I was furious. So I contacted an old prof from undergrad, who turned out an excellent letter within 48 hours.

Taking the LSAT was actually less of a hassle than locking down those LORs.